The Evil Rant And Review Book

Unsent White Carnations

Author: Gulthedreamer

Genre: Short story

No. chapters read: 6

First impression: Okay, this seems kinda cute.

Cover: Okay, the cover really, and I mean really fits the title. Literally. You have white carnations in an envelope. Or actually behind an envelope. Okay, now that I take a closer look, it's a little weird. Um, yeah...

I guess it fits your story. It's not an ugly cover, that's for sure. Do I love it? No. Why not? Because it's white and very not subtle.

Cover rating: Meh

Blurb: Um, okay, it's to the point I guess, and pretty grammatically sound ignoring the extra to after her (help her move on). But from this little slip I already know you're not native English and the giant hypocrite in me is already weary of awkward phrasing.

One thing confuses me. If these are letter, how will I know the effect writing the last one will have? It's not like I can see Noor beyond what she's writing. So I'm not sure what to expect.

Blurb rating: baffling

Let's get it on!

Second impression: Wow, this chick and weather, though.

Actual review *drum roll please*:

Language/Writing:

Your writing is pretty good. Can I still tell you're not native? Yes. But your mistakes are subtle and can be picked up and fixed easily either by you or an editor. Anyway, you don't have enough of them to distract from the story. The first few letters are really clean, too.

You have a pretty poetic language. You do descriptions nicely, and that tells me a lot about Noor. She's a dreamer and she's apparently obsessed with the weather.

Language rating: lilac (it didn't go full purple yet)

Plot: The plot is basic and obvious from the blurb. Noor apparently suffers through heartache and is trying to get over it by writing these letters. They're short and sweet and she does have a terrible zen voice.

But the weather... Every damn letter starts with the weather. I mean, I don't really mind, because it's a nice stylistic, poetic thing. But every. Damn. Letter. Oh, look, a boy broke my heart, but this sunset though...

Oh, looks, my grandma died, but this pretty rain...

Um, yeah. Why is she focusing on the weather so much? These letters are supposed to make her feel better, to heal. How does she heal that way? And how, oh how can she remember weather so well? I'm not sure how much time has passed since the action and the letters, but I can't remember what the weather was like last week so that just seems strange.

Right, anyway, the events themselves are pretty sweet and the emotions well portrayed.

Plot rating: It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring, he fell out of bed and bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning

Characters:

Noor: Is so damn sensitive and poetic, I wanna barf. Seriously, I can't tell much about her other than that and that she loved her grandmother. I like her. She so totally didn't deserve whatever asshole no name guy did to her.

Asshole no name guy: He appeared sweet at the beginning and romantic. I don't really know what changed yet and how he hurt Noor, but he deserves a kick in the crotch for it. Or maybe he got bored of all her weather talk.

Noor's grandma: is dead, but I got the feeling she was one awesome grandma. Only reason she actually gets included.

Character rating: poetic and sensitive

Why I stopped reading: I would've probably finished, but it got late and I went to sleep and then this morning I got lazy and thought I got an idea about the story anyway.

Grade: Meh. I'm not going to fail you, because it's cute and your writing is pretty solid. I'm not going to pass you either because you didn't achieve what you were going for with me (which is very important with short stories). By the fifth letter, I was a little bored. I didn't get all emotional like I should have. Maybe it's my cold shriveled heart. If anyone would ask me if I recommend this, I'd just shrug. So you get meh.